Hardline centrist hacks are struggling to have as much fun with Free Gear Keir, Labour Cronygate, and Sue Gray’s whopping salary as they did with similar (and often fabricated) stories about the Tories. The hypocrisy of Labour promising to “clean up politics” and then swiftly being exposed for doing the opposite within 100 days of being in power, splashing across most of the front pages. Though some have decided that a more pressing story is… James O’Brien’s unhinged rant about Nigel Farage:
It’s rare that James O’Brien and Nigel Farage are in the same room.
So when the Reform UK leader was leaving the LBC studios after his phone-in with Nick Ferrari, @mrjamesob delivered a one-of-a-kind handover. pic.twitter.com/owIDJUce9q
— LBC (@LBC) September 19, 2024
Emily Maitlis took to X to deliver her original thought on the show: “Just your normal studio handover. Like a throw to the weather really … except ….”. Pippa Crerar followed suit, tweeting: , while Jon Sopel reposted with a simple string of shocked faced emojis. Not like there’s anything more pressing to be tweeting about…
Amid the media’s renewed interest in Starmer’s freebie-taking, ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston thought he’d have a go. Yesterday’s afternoon exclusive on the ITV website declared: “Starmer gifted use of a hospitality box by Arsenal football club”, revealing that the club is providing an entire “corporate box for him, his family and his protection officers.” Quite the story when it comes to the freebie-mad PM…
By this morning Peston has been forced to put out an update stating that “the club is keen for the world to know there is no formal arrangement with the PM.” The club has shot down the story – Peston pondered that this was “a funny thing”…
Here is a funny thing. I am slightly struck, via Arsenal sources, that the club is keen for the world to know there is no formal arrangement with the PM! Not that I said there was. I did not say Arsenal “gifted” the minister permanent use of a specific box for his exclusive use… https://t.co/Fz2yIeFBLq
— Robert Peston (@Peston) September 19, 2024
Peston goes on to claim that he “did not say Arsenal ‘gifted’ the minister permanent use of a specific box” and there was “no suggestion of that.” The headline itself begs to differ, as does the line that the PM has literally been “given the use of a corporate box by Arsenal football club.” Oh well, never mind…
Ofcom has decided not to investigate the infamous Ed Balls softball interview with Yvette Cooper on Good Morning Britain, after ITV described it as “fair and impartial.” Not the most romantic description of the Coopers’ marriage…
Despite Ofcom receiving nearly 17,000 complaints—nearly double last year’s most complained-about show—the watchdog has decided not to even look into the husband/wife interview. Guido is surprised it decided against an investigation, considering its history of jumping at the opportunity to impose self-righteous rules on other outlets, namely GB News. Here’s a reminder of a few GB News shows that were found in breach of the rules in the past:
- Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil (featuring two sitting Tory MPs interviewing Jeremy Hunt). A show that received a whopping 45 complaints…
- Lee Anderson interviewing Suella Braverman.
- Mark Steyn’s program challenging the Covid vaccines.
- The Live Desk – “Don’t Kill Cash” campaign.
- People’s Forum: The Prime Minister. Only 500 complaints about that one…
And Ofcom is “independent and impartial”…
Sky News reports that Guardian Media Group is in talks to sell The Observer to ‘slow news’ outlet Tortoise Media. GMG chief executive Anna Bateson says this is “an exciting strategic opportunity.” An opportunity to offload…
Liberal media supremo James Harding has championed his “centrist dad media” brand with the help of BBC, the left-wing broadsheets, and millions in initial funding over the course of its 2019 launch. Five years later Tortoise Media has a £4.6 million annual operating loss to show for it, which is up £1.5 million from the year before. On the bright side, not as bad as GMG’s £21 million loss…
According to analytics data from SimilarWeb, Tortoise is struggling to get consumers to read its drawling long-form content, either. Over the last 90 days this is how they have done in terms of reader visits, which Guido has handily compared with another not-for-profit online outlet also founded to do more highbrow journalism:
From July to August alone Tortoise’s traffic dropped by a whopping 41%, and it is now attracting fewer than 500,000 monthly unique visitors. Audiences are hardly crying out for boring, long-winded centrist content…
The Observer is beaten to the bottom of print circulation only by The Guardian. Birds of a feather flock together…
Disgraced BBC presenter Huw Edwards has been sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for two years with a requirement to complete a sex offender programme. As the chief magistrate told Huw, his “reputation is now in tatters”…
The court was told today that Edwards paid between £1,000 and £1,500 to a convicted paedophile, Alex Williams, for images of child sex abuse. On one occasion, Edwards replied “f***” to an indecent video of an underage child, before wishing the paedophile a Happy Christmas. Meanwhile, Edwards’ defence claimed he was “mentally vulnerable” and has “no memory of viewing any of the images”. Not a good look for the BBC…
The ever-insightful News Agents have released a new podcast analysing what Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris means for the US election. For Emily Maitlis, this has completely changed the game in way nothing else could, profoundly stating it “has just fundamentally changed the race” for any voter under 70-years-old. The Swiftie said:
“I mean be in no doubt this will rock the entire electoral axis in the States. This has just fundamentally changed the race, by I’m going to say pretty much anyone under-40, but maybe it’s anyone under-70, I don’t know, but I think it will. Look, this is undoubtedly huge news.”
It’s reminiscent of when Owen Jones (40) stated “Russell Brand has endorsed Labour – and the Tories should be worried”. Sadly for Ed Miliband, the celebrity backing wasn’t quite enough to clinch electoral victory in 2015. Clearly Emily hasn’t learned how overstating the power of a celebrity endorsement can leave a hack red-faced…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
